Compelling, Heartbreaking, Thought-provoking and made to look effortless.

Death has started to exhibit a Personality, and that which is must surely end. He is shortly retired and chooses to work for an old lady on a farm for the remainder of his days under the pseudonym of (Good Old) Bill Door. Meanwhile the oldest wizard in the world dies and finds that (during this regrettable interim transition) there's nowhere for him to go, becoming the world's least willing zombie. I can't really review this in a way that does the bulk of it any justice -frankly if you've read it you either love it or you're wrong- but I thought the central premise was particularly fine:

The enemy here is the pernicious notion that progression leads us inevitably towards faceless efficient machinery, that because something is important and powerful, it is it's place to control, even rule, those who are involved with it. It's a sure thing that I'd forgotten about this book earlier in the year when I gave Warm Bodies the full five, because this does everything that does better, 20 years before, with bullet-proof plotting and a scope so broad that when it dawns it leaves you breathless.

Human Nature, Religion, the Industrial Revolution, a meditation on the nature of Life and Death. It's all in here and discussed with such subtlety that not a single critic noticed, it wasn't even particularly well received, let alone nodded for any awards.

The ideas, the prose and the (ah-ha) execution are all absolutely first class. This isn't just Pratchett hitting his zenith for the first time, this is one of the best books I've ever read.